Newfish /out/doorsman here, and I did a little window-shopping the other day, and now I'm looking for opinions and input on the brands available to me locally. The stores about are just a Dick's, an Academy, and an army-navy store. Obviously the first two have generally jacked-up prices, though a few things in the Academy seemed reasonable. The Army-Navy has the best prices, but it's stock changes weekly and much/most of it's used.

Brands spied: Timber Creek, S.O.P(S.O.D.?), Old Timer(?), GERBER (never in a milion years), the gun companies (mainly knives), and something that had the guy from Survivorman on it.
(this is from memory)

Mainly I'm wanting brand-opinions for tens, sleeping bags, knives, and backpacks, as much of the other stuff I can just examine the state/contents of and make educated assumptions.

While I'm confident I could get better prices over amazon/ebay, a lot of this I'd like to see and hold in my hand before I throw down 30+ bucks for it, you know? Not to mention that, living off the main roads as I do, delivery companies (Fedex in particular) often can't find me.

Saw some good-looking solid knives, but I also remembered someone saying gun-brand knives were 2nd-rate; idk where else to get one though